"Though it may always be well to attempt simplification, it is not always possible to
avoid at least an elegant complexity. And then one asks, how can this also be
‘true’? Is the real like this, is it this? Of course, we may attempt to
attain truth through irony. (An angel might make of this a concise definition of the
limits of human understanding.) Almost any tale of our doings is comic. We are
bottomlessly comic to each other. Even the most adored and beloved person is comic to his
lover. the novel is a comic form. Language is a comic form, and makes jokes in its sleep.
God, if He existed, would laugh at His creation. Yet it is also the case the life is
horrible, without metaphysical sense, wrecked by chance, pain and the close prospect of
death. Out of this is born irony, our dangerous and necessary tool."
--The Black Prince.
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